


One Or The Other

by SusieBeeca



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Agender gems, Body Image, Creepy Twin Language, F/M, Filipino Character, Gems don't understand gender, Gems don't understand humans, Homophobic Slurs, Human Biology, Implied abuse, Mixed-race, Other, Outer Space, Potty Humour, Racial slurs, Racism, Slurs, Tagalog, The next few tags could be seen as spoilers, Transphobia, Trigger Warnings, cabin fever, implied shipping, just so you know, mention of genitals, sex ed, the birds and the bees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 02:24:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14843831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusieBeeca/pseuds/SusieBeeca
Summary: With the Sun Incinerator still busted and nothing else to do, Lars begins to give in to cabin fever. He hopes and prays for something,anythingto relieve his boredom... until he gets asked a truly embarrassing question.





	One Or The Other

 

 

“Captain’s Log.” Lars let out a muffled sigh and rested his forehead in his palms. “’Fuck it’. Fuck this, fuck that, fuck _everything_. Over and out.”

The only response from behind his turned back was a dejected “Roger that” from Rhodonite, her chin in her fist as another hand trailed listlessly over the glitching screen.

With what had to be the tenth groan of the past hour, he tried to rub away the first throbs of a headache and stared down at his white pants, which were beginning to get dingy around the seams. How long were these doldrums going to last? Just how many days, nights, maybe _weeks_ had they been sitting ducks? Now that his heartbeat had slowed to a crawl---and with barely any other bodily functions to speak of---it was getting harder and harder to keep track of time. The onboard clocks had gone down with the power, just like every other damn thing on this hunk of junk, so the closest thing to a timepiece the crew had now was the nearby pulsar and its steady _blip-blip_ of electromagnetic radiation.

Despite himself, Lars grinned. He still got a kick out of remembering the coy little grin on Padparascha’s face when she'd announced that discovery. _“You’re all going to be very embarrassed that you underestimated your technical advisor!”_

Then his smile dimmed. Not so long ago, he’d have laughed in the face of anyone who claimed he’d be looking forward to Steven’s next visit. Now he was almost itching for it. He tried to assure himself that he was just eager for a human clock, wristwatch, phone, _anything_ that he could use to time the pulsar and translate it into human measurements… but a tiny part of him just kind of wanted Steven and his usual cheerful calamity to break up the monotony around here.

But he certainly didn’t _miss_ him or anything.

He pulled the hem of his cape and picked at the fraying ends. God, time was just dragging on and _on_. The tedium had only been broken once when a crash from below deck had sent Fluorite swearing a blue streak, and they’d all had a good laugh when she’d emerged, blushing and nursing a bruised elbow, to mumble out apologies for “Beryl’s foul language”. But that had been at least three hundred blip-blips ago. Lars gripped the armrests and stared up at the ceiling; he’d never been good at entertaining himself, because being alone with his thoughts always felt like being ganged up on, and he knew it was a losing fight.

Trying to distract himself, he listened to the quiet shuffling of his crew. It seemed he wasn’t the only one succumbing to cabin fever. The clings and clanks from below sounded like Fluorite trying to keep herself busy. The uneven grumbling from Rhodonite suggested she was having some weird kind of internal argument, one that he couldn’t quite hear. Padparadscha was humming the tune that had sounded a lot cuter the first time than the twentieth. Just as he was about to whirl around and sarcastically ask her if she would mind switching to a different station, another sound caught his interest---whispers hushed under cupped hands.

“How would I know? Go ask him.”

“I’m not going to ask him! You ask him!”

“No, _you_ ask him! It was your idea!”

“No it wasn’t! It was yours!”

He had to bite his lip to keep from snorting. He didn’t have to look to know whose conversation that was.

“Well you want to know just as much as me, don’t you?”

“Yes, but you started it!”

“No I didn’t. You brought it up a few days ago.”

“You brought it up _now!_ And it’s currently ‘now’! So go ask him!”

“I can’t! You have to ask!”

Making sure his cape wasn’t snagging under the wheels of the chair, Lars braced his heels against the floor and prepared to turn around. Over the past… month? Months?... he’d started to pick up on the subtle differences in the Twins’ speech patterns, but he still couldn’t remember which one had the slightly-higher voice. Whoever it was, she seemed to be losing the argument.

“Why can’t you?”

“B-because he’d hate me!”

“Oh, so you want him to hate _me?_ ”

“He wouldn’t hate you.” There was both petulance and jealousy in her voice. “He _likes_ you.”

The chair let out a squeak when Lars jumped, but they were too wrapped up in their squabbling to notice.

“No he doesn’t, you gabbro.”

“Well why’s he always talking to you instead of me, hm? Answer that, smarty!”

“Oh _please_. He can’t tell us apart.”

“Yes he can.”

“Can not.

“Can too.”

“Can not!”

“Can too!”

It was when _that_ scintillating discussion turned into a babbling stream of _“Cannotcantoocannotcantoo”_ that Lars decided to intervene. The first time he’d spun around in the Captain’s chair, cape billowing behind him, he felt like a Bond villain; now he just felt like some dweeb in Home Depot. “Okay, Twins. I know you’re talking about me.”

They whipped their heads around with shared gasps.

He signaled for them to come closer. “Just come out and say it, willya?” When he noticed the left one flinch, his expression softened and he forced a smile. “Look, I’m not gonna bite. I promise.”

They both stared at him for a moment, then met each others’ eyes. Although their bodies were mostly hidden by the back of their chair, Lars could sense some back-and-forth between them---shoulders moving as fingers pointed---and after a few irritated whispers the rightmost Rutile snapped “Fine! _I’ll_ ask him!” As they were rising from their seat, she added “Coward,” for good measure. The leftmost one flashed her an angry hand gesture, tongue out, and Lars chuckled to himself---apparently sisterhood was the same across the galaxies.

They hesitantly walked towards him, but he waited until they were only a few feet away before raising his eyebrows and leaning forward. “Well? Come on, we’re all friends here. What is it?”

Right cleared her throat. “You see, Captain Lars, the thing is…” She paused---then pointed to Left with a cocky grin. “She wants to ask you something.”

Left gasped, and that’s when Lars finally laughed out loud. He’d seen some dick moves in his time---hell, he’d been behind many---but that easily made the top ten. “Okay, Lefty. Since you’re so curious, fire away.”

“Yes, go on and ask him,” Right said smugly.

With a fuming, thin-lipped expression, Left grabbed her twin by the front of her uniform and yanked her close; she hissed something in a language Lars didn’t recognize, but the _‘I’m going to kill you’_ tone was familiar enough. When she managed to pry her angry gaze from her sister, she could only look at him for a moment before glancing away with a blush and a stammer. “Um. I. Um, I was… well, I was… just wondering, um… and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to! So we… I… was wondering… if…”

“Has anyone ever told you you do a great Fluorite impression?”

His sarcasm deepened her flush, but she swallowed the stutter. “Um. Do humans have…” For another split-second she met his eye, then looked away again. “…S-shapeshifting abilities?”

Now it was Right’s turn to glare daggers at her sister. He settled back in his chair, frowning a bit; something was definitely off between them, but he’d never really understood how siblings interacted, let alone twins. “Oh, is that all you want to know? Well, short answer: no, not like you guys. Long answer?” He poked a finger through a piercing and pulled his earlobe out to show off the impressive gauge. “Kind of. I wasn’t born with these. It cost a few hundred bucks---and ten years off my mother’s life---but I changed my body, so… yeah, I guess?”

They both looked dissatisfied, but neither spoke.

Lars decided to break the uncomfortable silence before he started to squirm. “So, uh… did that answer your question?”

“That wasn’t the question and she knows it,” Right muttered, but Left didn’t turn to look at her. With an impatient huff, she ran her hand through her hair and stared at Lars. “Since she doesn’t have the stones to ask, I suppose I’ll have to do it.”

She steeled herself, and then pushed out in a rush:

“Do humans have genitals?”

…

For about five of his extremely slow heartbeats, it felt like he was frozen. Holy _shit!_

The pulsar blip-blipped.

When the feeling came back to his body, Lars spared a quick glance around the ship. He could tell from the slight tilt of her head and her shaking hands that Rhodonite was paying attention. Padpradscha began to giggle; though she didn’t vocalize her “prediction”, the hot flush on her cheeks showed that she at least understood. Even Fluorite’s heavy footsteps from below had stilled.

Lars swallowed heavily. How the hell was he supposed to answer something like that now that everyone was listening in?!

“Well? Do they?”

He looked back up at the Rutiles---or, at least, at Right, since Left had her face buried in her palm.

“Wh---holy f--- What do you think we are, robots?” he spluttered, his face heating. “Of course we have genitals!”

That caught their attention, and they both looked at him with wide, curious expressions. “Really?” one whispered. “Why?” asked the other.

“Oh jeez…” His knees were pressing together. “Yeah, really. How else would we take a leak, or reproduce? And don’t ask me ‘why’, I’m not God.”

They shared a quick, questioning glance, but seemed to mutually agree to skim right over the mention of a deity they’d have no way of comprehending. Instead, they asked “What’s taking a leak?” and “How do you reproduce?” at the same time.

With a groan, Lars rubbed the heel of his palm over his temple and tackled the easiest question first: “Taking a leak. Uh. _Pissing._ ”

“Which is…?”

“I’ll give you an example,” he grumbled. “Remember that time when we were still underground, and I, uh, told you guys I was going to take a short walk, and not to follow me?”

“And Rhodonite followed you,” Right said with the beginnings of a smile.

“…and screamed,” Left finished.

“Uh, yeah.” He tried not to wince at the memory. He was glad Rhodonite had been kind enough not to tell them that the piercing shriek they’d heard had been **his**. “That’s taking a leak.”

“That doesn’t really explain---”

“Look, she saw me with my pants down. Humans, uh…” He began to drum his toes inside his boots as he mulled over how best to say this. Some time ago Steven had told him, all smiles, that he’d been working on a song to help explain _that_ aspect of digestion to his new friends, and Lars shuddered at the very thought.

“Humans usually eat and drink, and it has to come out at some point. I guess I still had some stuff inside me after I zombie-fied. It just took awhile.” He glanced up at his hair; the fringes were dim, unglowing. The pocket dimension was empty for now. “Come to think of it, I’m really glad it didn’t come out when I died. That would’ve been awkward... especially without a change of pants.”

“So, you’re saying waste material comes out through your genitals?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “Ugh. When you put it like that…”

“That sounds unhygienic,” Left stated, wrinkling her lip. Her sister seemed to have thought it through a bit more: “And you---you---you _mate_ with the same organs you use to pass waste? That’s revolting!”

_“Oh my god.”_

“Wait.” Left held up her hand, but she hesitated until Lars lifted his head before speaking. “I know you’ve mentioned something before---something about humans gestating.”

“Carrying and birthing live offspring,” Right added.

“Using their own bodies as Kingerg… no, incubators.” She fingered her chin as she thought. “How does that work? Do they produce their own clones?”

“Do humans need some form of injector?”

Lars pulled his lip between his teeth and chewed. Great. Just great. He really was stuck giving the Birds And The Bees talk to sentient space rocks.

_Could be worse,_ he figured. _At least now I have a porn name. ‘Lars ‘The Injector’ Barriga’._

He spent a moment glancing between the two of them, and then got to his feet. “Your console has a touch screen, right?”

“Yes,” Left said.

Right narrowed her eyes. “ _Ahem._ He was talking to me.”

It took everything within his to keep from slapping his hand over his face.

“Okay, that does it. I can’t stand this anymore!” He pointed at Left. “From now on, you are Kaliwa.” Then he pointed at her sister. “And you’re Tama. There you go, now you have names.”

Lars nodded, satisfied with their stunned expressions, and then strode past them towards the pilot’s console. “If you really want to know how babies are made, I’m going to have to draw on your screen.” He shot a grin over his shoulder. “Come on, Kaliwa. You too, Tama.”

He sat down in their chair, shuffling a bit at how cramped it felt after his own, and loaded up the ‘draw’ function as best he could. From behind him he heard their footsteps, their quiet giggling, and their whispers. They were saying their new names to each other, over and over, as if to test out how they felt.

Honestly, it made him kind of giddy.

When they arrived behind him, Kaliwa put her hand on the back of the chair---and Lars jumped when Tama put hers on his shoulder. His skin prickled when he realized this was the first time they had actually touched.

“Did you just give us human names?” she asked lowly, a tiny flicker under her skin.

Making a point of not looking up at her, Lars bobbed his head and fiddled with the screen. “Well, uh…I feel kinda rude just calling you ‘Left’ and ‘Right’.” Then his mouth popped open when something dawned on him: “Oh, hey, look--- if you don’t like those names, you can always change them! I didn’t mean to---I never even thought---”

“No, no, we love them!” Tama chirped as she gave his shoulder a firm squeeze.

“They’re wonderful,” Kaliwa sighed, her eyes closed. “ _Kaliwa._ That sounds lovely.”

“Um… okay, good.” He wiped a bead of sweat from his jaw, then pulled off his right glove so he could better access the touch screen. “Now come lean in. I’m going to start drawing.”

“This should be interesting,” came a murmur from behind him.

“Not quite the word I was thinking of, but I agree!” was the reply.

Lars’ finger shook just slightly. He’d had four kinds of sex education in his life. The first was a simple “Don’t.” The second came from porn. The third came from actually cracking open a smuggled library book and learning the ins and outs, so to speak. The fourth was experience. (Well… _he_ considered it ‘experience’, at least.) The first and second ‘educations’ had been less than stellar, the fourth far too personal, but the third had a kind of academic detachment he could use without blushing too much. He decided to give the Twins the simplest run-down he could.

“This is a penis,” he said as he drew crude outlines on the screen. “And this is a vagina.”

“Oh! You mean a phallus and a canal!”

“To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to.” He began to sketch out a cervix, but then suddenly glanced back at them. “Wait a minute, do gems have both?!”

“Er… no,” Kaliwa said as she scratched the shoulder joint where her other arm should have been.

“We have a canal,” Tama mumbled to the floor.

“But we can shapeshift a phallus if we…”

“…Wanted to.”

“Oh.” He let his eyes wander from them and back to the console. He’d known---sort of---that gems, being aliens, were without a sense of gender, but for them to just get whatever parts they wanted didn’t seem fair. Then again, he didn’t have to share an ass with anyone, so he supposed he could call it even.

“Do humans have both?”

He was glad he was facing the screen; his grimace was well-hidden. “No, not really.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oooookay.” The fingertip he held against the screen was starting to get sweaty. “About half of all humans have vaginas, and the other half have penises. But it gets complicated sometimes. Some have both, some neither, some a combination. Most people with vaginas have wombs, and…” He paused to finish his drawing, but it looked more like a moose than a uterus. Art was never his strong point. “The penis puts half the human ‘code’ in the womb, and the other human provides the rest. Then the new human grows in here.”

Tama squinted at his picture. “That looks very cramped.”

“It is.” He dismissed the picture, ignoring the warning pop-up; he couldn’t read gem glyphs, but apparently the ‘Are you sure you want to leave without saving?’ message was universal. He rotated the chair halfway and stood, smoothing the rumples out of his pants. “Penis, vagina, baby. Does that cover it?”

_Please say yes._

“No.”

“Of course not,” he muttered. Some archaic, long-buried part of his brain suddenly kicked in, and before he realized what he was doing, he stepped behind their chair and pulled it up to them, one hand extended... like a gentleman.

After a confused moment of staring at his outstretched arm, Kaliwa gingerly placed her hand in his and allowed him to hold it as she and her twin sat back down. Her skin was scalding-hot against his.

Lars gulped, his arm shaking. _Why the hell did you just do that, dumbass?!_ “Uh, there you are, my ladies,” he bumbled out stupidly, and this time didn’t bother to hide his flinch.

“Um…” Kaliwa eyed him as she withdrew her hand. “Thank you…?”

“Yes, thank you,” Tama said dryly, “But we do know how to sit down, Lars.”

His belly flipping, Lars’ mind began to race with all sorts of possible made-up stories should they ask him what that idiotic, _useless_ gesture had meant---“ _It’s a human sign of friendship! That’s all! Really!”_ \---but, luckily, they were still focused on the previous topic.

“There’s something I don’t quite understand.” Kaliwa folded her arm against her chest and looked away as she pondered. “Humans normally hide their genitals, correct?”

Tama had anticipated the following question: “If a human with a penis wanted to mate with a human with a vagina, how would they go about finding one?”

“Or vice-versa?”

“Uh.” Lars stared first at the left twin, then the right. “It’s complicated…”

“Do humans have a way of knowing who has what?”

“By instinct?”

“Or pheromones?”

Lars put his hands to his head and aggressively rubbed the shaved sides until his knuckles cracked. Why had he been so desperate to escape his boredom? This was _so_ much worse.

_Be careful what you wish for, **Laramie** …_

They were still going. “Do humans have secret codes?”

“Or genital signifiers?”

“ _‘Genital signifiers’?_ ” he hissed under his breath.

“Some way to know,” Tama clarified, with a gentle smile that indicated she’d sensed his discomfort.

“Sure we do,” he said, his voice all gluey and glum. “Or at least we try to.”

They folded their arms over their gem, hands on the other’s hips. It almost looked like a sign of unease.

“You ‘try’?” Kaliwa said quietly.

Tama glanced at her, then back at his despondent frown. “That means you sometimes fail?”

“What happens when you don’t get it right?”

“Is there a penalty?”

God, that stabbed into him like a knife. Lars looked up from the ground, but relaxed slightly when he saw that their faces were still sweet and reassuring. In spite of the cold knot wrenching his gut, he managed to pull himself out of the sinkhole his thoughts had created, and offered them a small smile. It widened both of theirs.

“It’s usually a case of statistics,” he began, trying not to stumble over his words. “See, most people with penises are men, and most people with vaginas are women…” Trailing off, he took in a breath of stale air.

Tama tilted her head towards him. “But?”

“But sometimes you can’t always be sure.” He popped and cracked his thumb joint again, a nervous habit that Sadie always hated. It served as a bit of a distraction when things got rough. “See, uh… some men have vaginas and some women have penises. It’s not exactly common, but it happens.”

Kaliwa was looking down at her toes, her eyes flickering with thought. “What’s the difference between ‘man’ and ‘woman’?”

“Can you tell us what those terms mean?” her sister added.

His arms flopped back down to his sides. He’d tried explaining gender to them before, but it was about as effective as explaining sprinting to a sloth---while they might have been able to grasp it in theory, there’d be no way for them to truly understand it in any practical way. Stevonnie had just confused them further.

“They’re basically terms for different roles humans have to play. They say---well, human society says you’re one or the other, based on what kind of body you have  
when you’re born.” He shook his head helplessly. “Humans have this need to put people into categories. All sorts of different categories. You’re either one or the other. And if you disagree...”

His words sort of pinched out.

For awhile there was quiet, but it didn’t seem like silence. It didn’t _loom._ He was staring idly at their split gem, but he could sense both of the Twins gazing at his face.

“And if you disagree?” one of them prompted.

“What if you can’t be categorized?” the other chimed in.

Lars tried to breathe, but it whistled in his throat.

He didn’t know how to answer.

He knew he’d gone pale.

“Do… do humans punish those who don’t fit in?” Tama asked with a voice as soft as a kiss.

The spit in his throat felt like thick acid. Jesus, how could he answer? Lars had learned how to dodge the rocks that got thrown at him, but not the memories. Words were slamming in his head like fists:

_Dyke._  
Rice cracker.  
He-she.  
Cunt.  
Half-breed.

_FREAK._

Kaliwa must have noticed his agitated, clenched stance, because she nudged her sister and whispered something to her in that undecipherable language. Their gem let off a light glow, and though their eyes only met for an instant, they seemed to have reached a conclusion.

“I think I understand,” Tama murmured, and reached up to touch her sister’s blank shoulder. “If you can’t be put in your place…”

“…You’re an off-colour,” Kaliwa finished. “A human off-colour.” She mimicked her twin’s gesture, gently palming her missing part.

“Yeah, well, you can say that to _me_ , but please don’t use that term when we get to Earth,” Lars said as a smile finally cracked through his gloom. “Trust me, humans have plenty of slurs already.”

They nodded, not quite in sync with each other.

“Do… do human off-colours get banished because of it?”

“Or killed?”

Normally that kind of question would have sliced at him---but coming from the Rutile twins, it felt more like a nudge.

“They could,” Lars said as he pushed the toes of his boots back and forth. His eyelids were drifting down, but he didn’t look away from their kind faces. “Actually, they do. A lot.” He realized he was still holding his glove, so he took the chance to fiddle his hand back into it; though it was a few sizes too big, it still was hard to wiggle his sweaty fingers in place. “But if you’re really lucky, you get a family that accepts you. Friends, too. Maybe even a whole town where you can be yourself.” He had to take a moment as that sunk in, and was surprised---horrified---to feel his eyes prickling with a risk of tears when the homesickness washed over him like a wave of broken glass.

“ _..Lucky…_ ” he said again, blinking until his vision wasn’t quite as hot and blurry.

“You _are_ lucky,” one of the Twins said softly.

He nodded, snuffling his arm over his nose as he regained his composure.

Kaliwa let her hand drop from her sister’s shoulder, and they both stared at him intently. “Humans can be born into one category, but live in another?”

Tama’s cheeks dimpled from her grin. “That’s your way of shapeshifting?”

“You could say that.” His chuckle was weak, but the voice behind it still rang out with strength. “Yeah, you could definitely say that.”

“This is fascinating!” Tama exclaimed. Kaliwa nodded, her eyes alight. “We have so much to learn.” Then her eyebrows jolted up as something occurred to her: “Homeworld has so many Rutiles---on Earth, are there other Larses?”

He rolled his eyes, more affectionate than anything; given what they’d just gone through, that question could have so many different layers to it, but he went for the most superficial answer. “Sure. It’s not a common name, but there are lots of guys named Lars. I mean, there’s seven billion humans, and tons of different names.” Touching the edge of his hair, he grabbed at the split ends---the only parts that seemed free of the portal---and stretched out a curl til it was its full length. “You know what’s funny? ‘Lars’ means ‘crowned with laurel’. It’s honestly the dumbest shit ever.”

They looked shocked. “Human names have hidden meanings?!”

“What do _our_ names mean?”

“Oh, uh…” He paused as he thought that one over, letting the curl bounce back in place. He didn’t want to admit they were just some words he remembered from those language classes his father had dragged him to half a lifetime ago. Knowing gems had a tendency to love fantastic tales about forgotten epochs, he decided to put a spin on his bullshit:

“It’s from the language of my ancestors,” he said with a flourish. He was really getting used to this cape. He hardly ever tripped over it anymore. “Great and ancient, noble words. Uh… Kaliwa means… ‘handsome’, and Tama means ‘beautiful’. They were the names of kings and queens. That’s why I chose them for you!”  
He smirked when the Twins both flushed, then turned to lace their fingers together, giggling with their foreheads touching. They were clearly thrilled. He swept a cowlick off his forehead and allowed himself the tiny luxury of striking a pose. _Smooth move, Lars._

They moved to face him, still squeezing each other’s hands, their cheeks together. For the first time he could recall, they looked more than happy---the word ‘radiant’ popped up in his head, but he quickly chased it away.

“Thank you so much,” Kaliwa said quietly, and her sister agreed, their eyes sparkling. “It means so much to us that you---”

They all jumped when a thin, shrill cry came from the ship’s port side. Startled, they turned to look at Padparadscha, who had both palms on her cheeks, a scandalized expression pulling her mouth open.

“Oh, Captain Lars!” she exclaimed. “No, no! Don’t you dare do that!”

Nervously, he licked his lips, but he had a sinking feeling he knew what was coming. “Don’t, uh, what?”

Her frown was evident even with half her face hidden under her bangs. “It’s very rude to just call them ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in another language! And it’s even ruder to lie about it!” She wagged a disapproving finger at him. “Shame on you!”

The air around him seemed to drop a few degrees, and out of his peripheral vision he could see two cold, furious glares. He couldn’t look at either Left or Right. All he could do was stare down at his boots, grinding his teeth together. “ ** _Thanks,_** Padparadscha.”

**Author's Note:**

> First thing's first: I just love the idea of the Twins squabbling [like the kids in Emperor's New Groove.](https://youtu.be/YICGahHlHHU)
> 
> Second: I really went out on a limb with this one, but I hope you like it! Thank you for reading!


End file.
